June 2, 2024
Step Across The Line
- Matt Nickoson
Sermon Notes
What if God is inviting you to cross the line in your battle right now?
Luke 14:25 NIV
Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them he said:
Jesus is always on the lookout for people that love him.
Luke 14:26 NIV
“If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple.”
Hyperbole: when you significantly exaggerate something to make a point.
Jesus expects to be first in your life.
Luke 14:27 NIV
“And whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.”
To carry your cross is to accept whose team you are on no matter the cost.
2 Chronicles 16:9a NIV
“For the eyes of the Lord range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him.”
Luke 14:28-30 NIV
“Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Won’t you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it? For if you lay the foundation and are not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule you, saying, ‘This person began to build and wasn’t able to finish.’”
Luke 14:31-33 NIV
“Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Won’t he first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand? If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace. In the same way, those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciples.”
“Give up yourself, and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save it. Submit to death, death of your ambitions and favorite wishes every day and death of your whole body in the end submit with every fiber of your being, and you will find eternal life. Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not given away will be really yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.” - C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
Luke 14:34 NIV
“Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again?”
Luke 14:35 NIV
“It is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure pile; it is thrown out. “Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear.”
This is your invitation to cross the line!
Colossians 2:15 NIV
And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.
Colossians 2:9-10 NIV
For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and in Christ you have been brought to fullness. He is the head over every power and authority.
Colossians 2:11 NIV
In him, you were also circumcised with a circumcision not performed by human hands. Your whole self ruled by the flesh was put off when you were circumcised by Christ,
Colossians 2:12 NIV
having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through your faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead.
Baptism is spiritual warfare!
Colossians 2:13-14 NIV
When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross.